Unfortunately I was out of town so my series on backing up your WordPress site had a minor break. I did schedule some posts to appear but did not have time to write the posts that needed to follow the back up.
Why BackUp Your Blog?
As discussed in the previous posts, you want to back up your posts regularly. This protects you should anything happen to your blog. You also want to back it up when you make major changes as they may cause the system to crash. While a crash should not occur, things do unfortunately happen.
Are you using the Back Up Plugin?
After our discussion last week I hope you are using the automatic backup program. If not go back to WordPress Plugin for Gmail Backup post. With it, your blog will be automatically backed up as frequently as you like. You will need to visit your email account and download your backup file onto your computer. Note where it saves.
Finding phpMyAdmin
Ok, so you have your backup but now you need to restore it. Log into your cPanel. This is your back office assigned by your webhost. Look for a box labeled databases. In it you should see phpMyAdmin. Click it, and you will be taken to a strange looking place.
Time To Find Your DataBase
From the main menu, underneath My SQL or localhost, pick Databases. You will then see your database(s) depending on how many you have. Click the one you need to restore.
Importing Your Data
Across the top of the screen will be a row of tabs. You need to click the Import tab. The next screen will have a “Location of Text File” box and a Browse button. Click Browse and find your backup file. Make certain you have the SQL radio button checked and press Go. If you need more information visit Codex WordPress.
Time to check your Blog!
Your blog should be restored. You will probably need to make some adjustments on your WordPress blog to get it back to your previous settings.
MJ This was definitely good advice and a word to the wise. Sites crash & data gets lost all the time. It makes life much less stressful when your back up is ready & on standby. Thank you again for making sense of WordPress for me.#blog30http://twitter.com/TheHighRoad
It is amazing and sad how often it happens. Servers, websites, blogs… we all see it, but say “It’ll never happen to me.” Unfortunately you and I both know better.
Unfortunately you and I both know first hand that blogs can crash. And we each had different reasons they crashed. Fortunately our respective blogs are recovered, and I am glad we are now friends. Thank you!